Web 2.0 isn’t new and it isn’t revolutionary—there I said it. The underlying premise of Web 2.0 is very similar to what Berners-Lee developed the web for in the first place: to gather and share information from multiple sources, in multiple formats. The hype surrounding Web 2.0 just seems louder now that we have realized the web isn’t a billboard and a credit card swipe machine. Yet people are filling shelves with books about The New Rules, writing articles about Web 2.0 and even postulating about Web 3.0 in blogs. Knowing what the new rules are is fine and dandy but in my experience people aren’t struggling with the concepts, they are struggling with implementing the concepts

Yesterday I spoke on a panel at USF and I was struck by how many people are looking at Web 2.0 as a magical elixir. “Sprinkle Web 2.0 over your website and watch your sales charts to grow like Sea Monkeys.” Keep in mind that the guy who invented Sea Monkeys invented X-ray glasses, and the people pushing Web 2.0 as state of the art aren’t that far behind him. The solution is not the solutions: Facebook, Twitter, Blogs, Wiki’s, Widget’s and Viral video—but rather the psychology of the people in your organization and their ability to adopt change.

Here’s the outline of my speech and a primer on the successes and struggles regarding the different stages of business.

Startup Implementation Success Points
—Most start-ups are beginning with 2.0 strategies out of the gate. Blogs/Forums and video’s are second nature to many new businesses and instrumental in why/how they decided to incorporate.
—Successful start-ups aren’t corralling people towards the checkout line but instead they are creating (and sometimes giving away) tools that create trust and establish communites.
—They realize the importance of relationships online and off. It’s not one or the other, it’s a combination of the two.

Startup Implementation Struggle Points
—Disregarding the importance of design. A good product or service coupled with terrible presentation is only overcome by tremendously hard work and luck. It can be done but why take that route?
—Struggling start-ups treat web 2.0 as end-all-be-all solutions and don’t adjust other marketing behaviors to work with web 2.0. This is what Seth Godin talks about in Meatball Sundae.
—The have a leader who is nose down, hoards information and are without a reliable (or can’t keep) a qualified #2.

Mid-Sized Implementation Success Points
—When mid-sized companies invest in solid management people and tools, they create a nimble environments allowing them to retain the creative atmosphere from their start up days.
—Mid-sized businesses often differentiate themselves with voice. A unique service or product these days is not enough, your branding and content has to separate you from the crowd.
—They listen to their competitors, employees and thoroughly evaluate their marketplace (online and off.)

Mid-Sized Implementation Struggle Points
—Mid-sized companies who try to be too corporate right out of the gate are sure to lose out on the incredibly talented Gen Y employees. That 25-year-old you just hired as a Marketing Manager grew up with MySpace and mobile texting, probably has a website she designed and coded and knows more about viral videos than you do.
—When the principals of mid-sized companies still try to do everything themselves, you’ve got trouble. Someone, somehow, has to get through to them that “no, it won’t get done exactly like they would have done it” but in order to grow (implement that new content strategy) they have to let go.
—The biggest struggle I’ve seen in mid-sized businesses is management fearing to change or do anything different than what got them to where they are.

Large Corporation Implementation Success Points
—C-Level executives empower and encourage management to be nimble.
—They are technologically agnostic (not locked into one vendor/CMS/Microsoft).
—They rely on outsourcing and stick with their core competencies.

Large Corporation Implementation Struggle Points
—They compete in The Org-Chart Olympics. No one knows who is in charge or what the most direct rout is to get things done and often different teams want different messages. This is usually caused by a lack of executive buy in, department infighting and general mismanagement.
—Large companies who burn through vendors have to: invest a considerable amount of time to ramp up with new vendors, usually provide rushed/incomplete project specs and fail to look at vendors as valued team-members.
—Upper management fails to realize that the bottom reflects the top. From creativity to attendance to attitude to commitment.

The Olympics were all abuzz this summer about the new Speedo LZR suits the swimmers were wearing. Speedo’s technology meant swimmers were able to use 5% less effort to achieve the same speed. Less effort, better results—that makes sense.

In the past few months, we’ve been working with a number of companies transitioning from the old rules and old technologies to the new rules and new technologies. And I am here to say that transition isn’t always pretty and organizations are working too hard for mediocre results—picture the 400 medley in a 3-piece suit.

A few of the Old School to New School challenges we have seen are:

Refusing to be Nimble—Today’s organizations need to pace themselves according to the technologies that are dictating their future. Applying 1980s project management techniques and meeting schedules to a 2008 landscape virtually assures your organization will be playing catch-up. Things move fast today and if that means you need to re-org to streamline, do it. Don’t let politics and poor project management be the difference between success and failure.

Hot Potato—When transitioning from the old rules to the new rules there are two schools of thought. One, champion the hell out of the new rules and fight the underlying tide that is the status quo. Or, try to appease the status quo and move forward with your plans while never really taking ownership (or creating a confusing hierarchy) of the project. If the first plan works, you’re a hero, and if it doesn’t…well it will. If the second plan works, you’re a hero, and if it doesn’t, no one knows who to blame.

The Safety Dance—Yes, there are industries that require curtsies to regulations and legal verbiage but at a certain point the marketing department has to get legal to bend a bit. Try this; “They won’t be able to sue us if we don’t differentiate ourselves because…we won’t be around anymore.”

A Website is Not the Answer—If you are placing ads in magazines you should have a social media strategy in place. I recently worked on a campaign for a company who was on the fence about putting their URL in the print ad. I am one of the few who think print isn’t dead but I do realize that it needs an overhaul. (If you can name 10 friends who have an e-book reader, email ian at eatmedia.net and I will jump into panic mode.) Until then, the case is clear—if you are using your website as a business card only (i.e. Home/Products/Contact Us) and your organization doesn’t have a blog, news feed or a content strategy, start worrying.

In the end, it is all about budgets and approvals but it’s also about speed and selecting the correct strategies and tools for the job/race. Big fan of the suit and tie here, but I wouldn’t jump into a pool with my 3-piece suit against my competitor wearing a time-shaving Speedo.

This past week we had two unfortunate incidents relating writing and death. The first was the passing of author David Foster Wallace. Like many other contemporaries of Wallace’s I found his masterpiece Infinite Jest simultaneously aggravating and exhilarating. His non-fiction on the other hand gleamed with a face-against-the window realism and detail that most writers skip over in place of rote facts and tired cliché’s. I once read that the farther you get away from the visual and the tactile in the arts, the higher your chance of suicide. There is a very real difficulty holding treads in both worlds—one world that inspires and sometimes lets you down and another that you create out of reflections, alphabets and inspiration.

The second incident was the train tragedy in Los Angeles. Communication tilts many dominoes every day: an inside stock tip, an unforeseen ‘I love you’ and on the business side a follow up email from a vendor. Rarely, but occasionally, the delivery of communication fails us. A minor, real-life, case of this would be my email being down this morning when I needed to send a final file to a client. A major case of it would be the yet to be substantiated claims that the conductor of the crash in Chatsworth missed a track signal because he was texting on his cell phone.

Choosing what to communicate is very important. Choosing when to communicate is vital.

Respectfully,

Ian Alexander

Dear Advertorial,

I don’t know how to say this nicely but…it’s just not working. I’ve tried for years to include you in my circle. I’ve never made you play the uncomfortable host, I’ve sat you in between features and ads and even given you your own tagline: “Special Advertising Section.” But know matter what I do, you always seem to either want more or blend in covertly and then start passing your card around in the middle of dinner. It wasn’t until this past week when you mimicked my department style that I realized it wasn’t you, it was me. I should have never trusted you to begin with. I should have kept my editorial editorial and my advertising advertising. We’ve had some good times—the ad cloaked as a story about our trip to the US Virgin Islands, the business opportunities in India where I let you interview your friends and those photo-styled dinners we cooked in the new condos on the West Side (remember how we soaked up real estate money when the market was hot?) All good memories, but times have changed and my analyst says I need to clean up my act and start setting some boundaries. Everyone always told me you were a little shady, a little “local coupon magazine-ish.” I guess they were right.

Best Wishes,

Editorial

Short of making our clients happy, nothing is quite as satisfying as hanging a new sign, in a new office. Eat Media has moved into a new SW Florida office complete with a media room, lobby and an orange couch.

We have also added two new content editors to our team—welcome Cindy Kane and Jonathan Maziarz. Stay tuned for new services, news and an Eat Media homepage re-branding. First 50 people to sign up for our newsletter get to sit on the orange couch.

In the Custom Content world the production/creation of content is often a piece of cake compared to the stakeholder review/sign-off process. Any company, (large or small) can go to Elance or Craiglist and hire a writer or videographer to crank out content. But this route has a tendency to ensure both parties are shortchanging one another (and themselves)—by indentifying that the only perceived value is “the production of work.”

—The client may think they have scoped out exactly what they want, but being inside the business does not always give them the best vantage point regarding their assets and liabilities.

*This is why we have ad agencies.

—The content producer (writer) may be very happy to tap out exactly what the client wants—(1500 words about the benefits of micro fleece over wool.) But in the end the lack of brainstorming and thinking outside the box is likely to leave many other (potentially better) ideas on the table.

*Perhaps a series of short interviews with people on the street asking them if they are warm, or a charticle comparing the hydrophobic properties and relative warmth of all fabrics.

In the examples above the work will get done but the signoff/stakeholder review process is sure to be a bear. Looking to smooth out the sometimes ominous stakeholder review process, here’s a few tips:

Client:
—Get input from every member of your team, from customer service all the way up to the CMO. What may be important to the executive team may not at all relate to what those on the front lines are hearing everyday.
—If you are going to manage freelancers yourself, once you hand over a scope of work to the content producer be open to new concepts/tweaks.
—Keep in mind that writers are just like designers—they have a default style. If you need consumer writing and all of the examples you’ve seen from writer you are working with consists of lifestyle oriented pieces with lots of voice, you may be setting yourself up for unnecessary edit rounds.
—Keep the stakeholder review list as small as possible. At a certain point you will start collecting conflicting edits. You will be frustrated and so will the writer.

Content Provider:
—Don’t do the bare minimum. You are being hired to write but the end result is to generate brand awareness/sales for your client. Ask questions, politely challenge your client to explain the objectives, review earlier collateral and ask what the client likes and dislikes about it.
—Manage your meetings don’t let the meetings manage you. Send out a meeting outline prior to every meeting and don’t stray too far from the outline. If you identify a new topic save it until the end or schedule a new meeting.
—Identify and speak with the stakeholders prior to starting the content process. Ask them what their favorite magazines/columns are and why? Check to see if legal needs to review the content and ask your contact what angles/terms/words/etc. you should avoid.
—When submitting content for stakeholder approval include the signed-off creative brief and indentify the sources you used and any internal/external links (if web).